


1,000 Words

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Paparazzi, Tabloids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: The photo in the papers the next day showed you seemingly having the time of your life, head thrown back and laughing as Sam dipped you low on the dance floor, a bright and happy grin on his face. You couldn’t even argue the context on that one.





	1,000 Words

The first few times really were an accident.

It started innocently enough. The fray was over, surprisingly minimal damage for a change, only a few storefronts with blown out windows and a city bus stop that had become a smoking crater. Thankfully, there were no casualties. You were just thinking to yourself that it was light damage for a change when a sudden sharp pain to your left eye made you wince. You were rubbing at it, hoping for some small relief from the pain, when Sam landed right in front of you.

"You okay?" he asked, concern clear in his voice. 

That was probably what you liked best about working with the team: everyone honestly gave a damn about everyone else. 

"Just something in my eye," you grumbled, rubbing a little harder and earning only a slow trickle of a teardrop for your trouble.

"Here, let me see," Sam instructed and you froze in place, looking up towards the sky to give him a better view of your eyes while he reached forward, tipping your face up with his thumb and forefinger on your chin.

Sam smiled. “There it is,” he said, and with a warm exhale of breath, you felt a small twinge and then the pain was gone. “Looks like you had a piece of Manhattan in your eye.”

 

When the photo hit the tabloids, even you had to admit that it looked like you were kissing from the angle it had been taken. You hadn’t noticed anyone around on the street, and certainly no cameras, but it was just as likely someone snapping a quick shot on a cell phone and then selling it to the highest bidder.

“‘Has New York’s Favorite Flyboy Found Love’?” Tony read the headline in an incredulous tone. “Why the hell is Sam the favorite?!”

You snorted, pouring yourself a cup of coffee from the pot on the communal kitchen counter. “It’s not enough for you to be a playboy philanthropist?” you asked.

“Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, thank you,” Tony corrected, and turned the trashy tabloid in his hands around to display the cover photo. “Any more comments from the peanut gallery?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

You rolled your eyes. “Seen it,” you told him, and shook your head. “Totally out of context. I had something in my eye, Sam was helping me out.”

“Is that what they call it these days?” Tony replied and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

You leaned towards him, plucking the paper from his hands. “Saying stuff like that Tony? Just makes you seem old.” You laughed at his indignant cries as you walked away.

 

The second time was at one of Tony’s ridiculous parties. It seemed that every few months there was some new gala, some new ball, some new benefit, and you were all expected to attend. It often seemed like a chore, and the first few hours always were, until the stuffed shirts left and the liquor had been flowing long enough to loosen up those that remained. You had the sneaking suspicion that Tony found ways and reasons to host a party whenever the team started getting a little too run down; he had a knack for noticing when the group needed to blow off steam, and you were positive that he would make up some far-fetched reason to break out the confetti and champagne.

You couldn’t even recall what this particular party had been arranged to celebrate by the time the crowd had thinned and the constant parade of drinks in your hand had left you red in the face and grinning. You had lost your shoes some time earlier; they were gorgeous, gold strappy stilettos, but they were murder on your feet, so you had kicked them off beneath a table as soon as you were able and spent the rest of the evening padding around in bare feet. Not that anyone could have noticed -- the flowing cerulean gown you wore was a few inches longer than floor length. 

That in itself was a problem, something you hadn’t considered as you crossed the dancefloor to reach the bar, where a few of the others were gathered. Just as you were about to step off of the marbled ballroom floor and onto the carpeted runner near the bar, someone stepped on the edge of your dress and stopped you short. You gasped, too surprised and too inebriated to catch your own balance that quickly, but lo and behold, there was Sam to save the day.

He caught you around the waist just as you started to fall backwards and you couldn’t help but laugh at the display, drawing a wide, friendly grin onto his face.

“There you go, falling for me again,” he teased, helping you to right yourself. You laughed again and gave him a playful shove to the shoulder; just the week prior, you’d been an a rocky outcrop on a recon mission when the ground had unexpectedly begun to crumble. If Sam hadn’t swooped out of the sky and scooped you up, you’d have fallen at least sixty feet onto a rocky canyon floor.

“There you go, playing the hero again,” you responded, grabbing a drink off a nearby table that you thought might have been yours and finishing the dregs of gin and grenadine in the bottom of the glass.

“Hey, that’s my job, isn’t it?” Sam replied with a shrug and a smile. His eyes were a little too wide and a little too red; you knew he must have been enjoying the party as much as you had been.

Well, you thought, good for him. He deserves it. We all do.

“You can save the day again by getting me a new drink,” you advised with a curt nod, and Sam looked ready to reply when the music playing changed and his head snapped towards the sound system.

“Oh shit!” Sam said, cheerful voice belying his words. He grabbed your hand and started pulling you out onto the dance floor. “We gotta dance to this one, we gotta dance…!”

The next thing you knew, you were laughing and being swung around the floor to Solomon Burke while Sam tried to sing along, and you didn’t mind it one bit.

 

The photo in the papers the next day showed you seemingly having the time of your life, head thrown back and laughing as Sam dipped you low on the dance floor, a bright and happy grin on his face. You couldn’t even argue the context on that one, since Sam had pulled you out onto the floor just moments after he caught you in your near-fall.

Steve looked at the news page on his tablet, then to where you sat nursing a mild hangover on the lounge sofa, and then back to his tablet, but said nothing.

You groaned, glaring at the sunlight streaming in through the balcony windows. “What do you wanna say, Steve?” you asked testily, his lingering glances not having escaped your notice.

Steve cleared his throat. “Oh, nothing,” he responded mildly. “I just didn’t know you liked to dance so much.”

You huffed in response squeezed your eyes shut to block out the sun, effectively ending the conversation.

 

You saw the photographer the next time, but were far too busy to really pay him any mind beyond a brief thought as to why the hell the police hadn’t shooed the press away as soon as they heard you were coming in. This time the photograph captured you straddling Sam’s waist as he lay limp and prone on a gurney, two paramedics rushing as they wheeled you both inside a downtown Chicago emergency room and another running alongside, pumping an ambu-bag. Tears streaked through the mess of dust and blood on your face as you counted out chest compressions, desperate to get Sam’s heart beating again.

He’d taken some kind of energy pulse directly to the chest from an unknown weapon while the team was bringing down an enemy intelligence stronghold in the city. Your training as a corpsman for your Marine unit had served you well in keeping Sam alive for much of the ride to the hospital, but you’d lost a pulse a few miles out and had spent the rest of the journey manually pumping his chest.

And of course you were crying. Sam was your friend, your teammate -- you trusted him with your life, and he trusted you all the same. You couldn’t let him down, couldn’t lose him.

There were more photos, taken through hospital windows, of you pacing and trying to keep calm after the doctors had asked you to wait outside of the treatment area. Someone had snapped you sinking into a chair in relief when the ER doc had come out to tell you that Sam had stabilized; the rest of the team had arrived by then, and arrangements had already begun to have Sam moved to a private SHIELD facility for his recovery.

There was a particularly poignant shot of you slumped in the uncomfortable waiting area chair, your face in your hands, with Clint sitting beside you, a comforting arm over your shoulders. The press had an absolute field day with it.

You were furious, but Sam, once he was sitting up and talking again, thought it was hilarious.

“People like a story,” he told you, poking skeptically at a cube of green Jello on his lunch tray. The SHIELD medical facility was state of the art, but apparently their cuisine wasn’t quite up to scratch.

You shook your head. “You were dying, Sam. Actually dying. Literally dead for a few minutes there. And some asshole is snapping photos because they want to treat people who risk their lives to save everybody else’s like god damn Hollywood trash!”

“You’re taking it a little too seriously,” Sam replied. “People like a story. Let’em have it, make’em smile.” He poked the Jello again.

You gave a short, snorting laughed, and decided to put him out of his misery. “Okay, okay, quit torturing the Jello,” you said, and pulled a greasy sack of fast food from a nearby dive out of the bag you were carrying.

Sam grinned. “My girl!” he crowed, snatching the bag from your hand. “And you wonder why everyone says we’re in love?”

 

After that, you decided to just let it go. You liked spending time with Sam and you weren’t going to spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder for photographers or curious locals with camera phones. You went running together as he recovered, smiling at Steve each time he lapped the both of you. When Tony felt the need to throw another party, you went as platonic dates and had a great time, drinking and dancing the night away.

When invitations rolled in for different events -- the opening of a new park, a visit to a children’s hospital -- they came in pairs. And really, you didn’t mind. Sam was fun and easy to talk to, and it sometimes it felt as though he put you in a better mood, just by virtue of his presence.

So when the invitations came in for a tree-lighting ceremony at a museum benefit, you weren’t the least bit surprised to see yours and Sam’s came on the same card, and not the least bit bothered. Wanda had helped you find a gorgeous red satin dress and the people from Harry Winston had called, asking if you would mind wearing some of their jewelry that night, as if you’d refuse.

They only real hiccup was when your mother called, asking what your ‘boyfriend’ was getting you for Christmas, and while you were still struggling to find a way to explain to her that it wasn’t what she thought, Sam snatched the phone out of your hand.

“Hey Mama, Merry Christmas!” he called cheerfully, and you stared dumbfounded while he chatted away about the dollhouse he had apparently sent your nieces. You didn’t have any time to try and figure it all out, because you were being ushered out the door and into a town car, Sam shoved in just moments later, and he would only address the call by saying, “We’re invited for brunch on Christmas. We’re bringing cinnamon rolls.”

 

You played the part on the red carpet. You smiled for the cameras, waved, and pretended like Sam’s hand around your waist belonged there. Inside there was dancing, champagne, and a truly breathtaking tree. 

“Gorgeous,” you said with a smile, eyes glued to the twinkling lights and the way they made the blown glass ornaments seem to shimmer.

Sam stood beside you and nodded. “Always,” he agreed, and you didn’t even notice that he wasn’t looking at the tree at all.

The cameras flashed again while you danced, and while you toasted the holidays, and even while you snagged a few hors d'oeuvres from a passing tray. Thankfully, Tony arrived fashionably late and took the heat off of the two of you for a while.

“This is getting kinda crazy,” you told Sam with a laugh.

He shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” he countered, and gestured around the room with the champagne glass in his hand. “Look at us, couple of vets, rubbin’ shoulders with all these folks… not bad for a night out on the town… and the company couldn’t be better.” 

There was something else there, something in his eyes that seemed different than before. You gave a confused smile and tried to think of the right words to address it, to parse what you wanted to ask just right, but you didn’t get the chance. Tony had migrated across the floor and grinned at you both from a few feet away, the sort of smile on his face that tended to mean trouble.

“Hey lovebirds,” he called, pointing somewhere above your head. “Mistletoe!”

Of course he had to draw attention to it, the sprig of leaves and berries hanging on a brightly colored ribbon just above your heads. A dozen faces turned towards you expectedly, all of them waiting to see a kiss from the Avengers in love, and you gave a nervous laugh.

“I suppose we should give the people what they want?” you asked, and Sam nodded.

“Suppose so,” he agreed, and before you had even the chance to say another word, his lips were on yours.

 

The room seemed to fall away. Sam’s hands were warm on your waist, the scent of his cologne, smokey and spiced, flavoring the very air around you as your own hands curled into the fabric of his jacket. His lips were so soft, the brush of his mustache the perfect counterpoint to the gentle kiss. 

When he pulled away, his dark eyes were searching yours for a reaction. You raised a hand to your lips, touching as though you missed the feel of his mouth against yours and, god, you really did.

Eyes wide at the sudden jumble of emotions welling up inside you, all you could say was, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, a little breathlessly.

And then you were laughing, pulling his closer and kissing him again, kissing him for real, for the first time, for every last kiss you would ever give and you knew, you knew without asking that he felt the same.

All around you, cameras were flashing, but really? You couldn’t bring yourself to care.


End file.
